This is where my work has taken me, for a surprisingly long time: initially in 2004, for a summer placement, and full time since August 2005. Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, is not the most Chinese - nor the most welcoming - of cities. The sole religion of the Cantonese masses is (but perhaps always has been) filthy lucre. Earning it is pretty much the be-all and end-all. But for all that, there is much allure to the city. The older parts of the city, between Zhong Shan Ba Road and the Haizhu Square riverfront, are quite low rise, with interesting back alleys and temples. And of course, there is the national obsession with food, magnified many times over: not for nothing is the city dubbed the 'food capital of China'. In short, it is not a place that immediately strikes you, but it definitely grows on you. I have no plans to leave any time soon.
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A washed out journalist, posted to India to cover a bloody election campaign, uncovers truths about his son's life - and death - in the country, truths that test loyalties forged in the war zones of Bosnia and Rwanda. A fiercely evocative narrative of modern-day India, filled with the clamour and hot stinks of its capital, this is a novel of death woven through with life.
"The writing is very very good... the mysteriousness of Wyndham's death and the narrator's involvement will entice the reader to keep reading." - 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Expert Reviewer